The NBA is about to officially confirm the in-season tournament, an idea that has been floated for years already.
The league will announce details of the tourney at an ESPN NBA Today Special on Friday at 7:30 PM ET, including dates, competitive structure, locations, trophy unveiling, and group drawings.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that the in-season tournament's Final Four will be held on December 7 and 9 in Las Vegas, and all statistics will count for the NBA regular season, except for the championship game.
The idea was first floated in 2019 to increase fan interest during the mundane stages of the regular season, with the NBA reducing the number of games for each team from 82 to 78 to accommodate the midseason event. A cash prize of $1 million was also proposed to be given to the winning team.
The play-in tournament was also part of the proposal in 2019, and it was executed for the first time in the 2020 NBA bubble.
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Interest in NBA In-Season Tournament got renewed in 2021
The 2019 proposal planned the in-season tournament by the 2021-22 NBA season, but the COVID-19 pandemic, financial reductions, and other circumstances delayed it.
Some owners and players were also hesitant to make a change in the traditional 82-game season of the league, and talks about the event slowly died down.
Renewed momentum about the midseason tournament occurred in 2021, with the NBA and NBPA discussing the elements of the event. The goal was to introduce it as soon as the 2022-23 or 2023-24 season, and they are now bound to make it happen.
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